1. Field of the Disclosure
The present invention relates to the field of human supports and more specifically to the field of adjustable, therapeutic furniture commonly known as recliners.
2. Background Information
Furniture possesses many uses. Without delving deeply into the history of furniture, there have evolved two primary classes of furniture dedicated to supporting a human in repose: beds and chairs. Beds are designed to accommodate a human lying generally flat, and chairs are adapted to accommodate a more contorted, seated human body arrangement. Although recliners exist that allow multiple positions, such recliners have inherent drawbacks: for example, a user is either in one of the preset reclining positions, or is in an unstable in-between state; and often a user cannot flex his back beyond an angle of 180 degrees.
There is a need for a single article of furniture that can adjust to the many positions of human repose, rather than limited specific preset positions. Of particular interest, are medical patients having mobility issues. It is often the case that a patient has an issue standing, lying down, or even moving from one article of furniture to another. The problem becomes further complicated when moving a patient into or from one article of furniture to another becomes inherently destructive to the patient's health. Current furniture is either functionally insufficient, or overly complicated and specialized.
Although simple furniture suitable to accommodate a human in various states of repose is a rare find, other devices with highly adjustable body members suitable to greatly alter the configuration of a human do exist. Such devices tend to include exercise equipment. For example, in U.S. Pat. No. 6,435,611 there is disclosed an exercise device having two body supports which move in similar rotation and inverse elevation to one another to change from a chair configuration, where one support is higher than the other, to a spine tensioning apparatus, where the supports are near equal in elevation. Preferably body supports are spaced apart from one another such that the only interconnecting human link between the two supports, when in a near equal elevation configuration, is the human spine. The spine, in this configuration is then subjected to similar forces as a simple beam supported by two separate forces, tension, compression, shear and moment. The spine is aided by and through tension and contraction and increased blood flow and afforded the ability for spinal muscle, nerve and soft tissue development and maintenance. The supports, independent of each other, comprise an upper body support and a lower body support and allow an individual's body to practice spine enhancement, development, & or traction, lying or any combination thereof, or alternately, face up, face down, or on either left or right side. The apparatus is also applicable to retrofitting existing chairs.
Although this exercise device includes two rotatable platforms which allow a significant degree of freedom of motion to the user, its primary purpose is to tension a spine rather than to support a human in various states of repose. Adapted to provide spinal tension rather than body support, this exercise device's body support platforms are purposefully static internally and limited to circularly-rotating platforms. The body supports are not dynamically motionable to allow changing into different positions of repose while the user remains within the furniture.
Therefore there is a need for a single article of furniture designed to allow a user to occupy multiple states of repose and to easily reach those states of repose without having to leave and reenter the furniture.